Students' Work Experience II

Today marks the end of the three Sec 4 students' time with my project for their work experience. We hope they have learnt some take-away which they can apply in their future. We certainly enjoyed having them with us. 

Students' Work Experience

For the coming two weeks, my project is hosting three Sec 4 students from Catholic High School for their Work Experience Programme. We hope it will be a good experience for the boys. 

Student Work Experience

Once again, I took in five Secondary 3 students under my project for their work experience programme. Although it is only a one day programme, I built in both information-giving and hands-on for the students without making it too boring or too over-whelming for them as it is their first experience with research work. 

Marieann - one of the students attached to my project for work experience :)

The lovely work experience programme students

My colleagues, Liyana and Cheryl and I enjoyed interacting with the students. We hope that the skills that they learnt at the work experience can also be applied to their school work. 

Hong Kong Trip 2015 Day 4 Part 1 Ngong Ping 360

We woke up early today as I bought our tickets for Ngong Ping 360 Crystal Cabin experience at 10:15am. The MTR journey from Tsim Sha Tsui to Tung Chung took about 55 minutes. We arrived at Ngong Ping 360 just before 10am. I was really glad that I bought our tickets online. The queue for the ticket purchase was very long! We were fast-tracked to the queue for the crystal cable car which was also shorter than the queue for the standard cable car. :) 

In the MTR train

Juliane walking ahead in the fast track lane

Within 10 minutes, we were in our crystal cable car! It was pretty scary looking all the way down to the ground as I am afraid of height. It was quite a cold day so the mountains were shrouded in mist/ fog. The cable car journey took about 25 minutes. It was quite exhilarating, minus my fear of heights. :) 

In the cable car on the way to Ngong Ping 360

The crystal bottom

Quite misty/ foggy

Arrived at Ngong Ping 360

I spent quite a bit of time taking photos of Hello Kitty! Lol. We bought quite a fair bit of souvenirs at the first shop we entered haha. We walked through Ngong Ping Village and to Tian Tan Big Buddha. However, we didn't walk up to the Big Buddha when we saw how many stairs it took to get up to the top. :P We tried some local snacks such as spicy fishballs, egglet, glutinous rice cake which were delicious. We left Ngong Ping close to 2pm.

I was thrilled to be taking photos with Hello Kitty

More Hello Kitty!

Juliane and her wish

Making my wish

General Kumbhira who represents the Boar

Tian Tan Big Buddha right at the top

General Andira who represents the Monkey

A HUGE Lucky Cat, we both need lots of luck for the coming year

Trying Spicy Fishballs (requested for only a little sauce)

More local snacks: egglest and glutinous rice cake

Our return trip in a Hello Kitty cable car! 

The crystal bottom with Hello Kitty on it

Still quite misty/ foggy

Bye bye, Hello Kitty cable car

We had McDonald's lunch at Citygate Outlets because I wanted to try the Hokkaido Salmon burger lol. After lunch, we went straight to the Kipling outlet. After 40 minutes, we left Kipling with 2 backpacks and a handbag which costed me a total of SGD$235 (40% discount)! :D We left soon after as I have already got what I wanted. 

We headed back to Kowloon for our night adventure.

Hong Kong Trip 2015 Day 2 Part 1 Big Bus HK Island Tour

The morning started off very cloudy. Weather forecast said it would rain today. :(
We walked from our hotel to Star Ferry terminal at Tsim Sha Tsui in the morning to catch a ferry over to Hong Kong Island to start our Big Bus hop-on-hop-off day tour. I booked us on the Deluxe Tour with Night Tour which included of 48 hours hop on hop off and a panoramic night tour of Kowloon Peninsular.

Cloudy day, rain expected :(

The ferry ride across to Central was extremely fast and efficient. We didn't have to wait long for the next ferry (less than 3 minutes!) as we just missed one and within 10 minutes, we were at Central Pier. 

On board the ferry named Solar Star

Sky 100 or ICC partially obscured by the clouds

Central Pier

Reversible benches on the ferry

We boarded our Big Bus for the Hong Kong Island tour (Red Route) and sat on the upper deck around 10:30am. We went one loop first on the bus before deciding at which points to disembark for the sights. The entire ride took about 1.5 hours, returning back to Central Pier around 12pm. Didn't get a lot of good (non-blurred) photos as the bus was a tad fast.

Plugged into our audio systems for the recommended commentary

Leaving Central Pier, going on the Red Route

Golden Bauhinia Flower at Golden Bauhinia Square

Bus with Litte Twin Stars advertisment!

Old and New: Electric tram and Modern Bus

The Pawn at Wan Chai

Hong Kong street scene

Hong Kong financial centre

The Peak Tramway - looked at that queue!!

St John's Cathedral

A funny thing happened when we arrived back at Central Pier. What I didn't know was that we had to disembark and go on to the next bus for the loop again. We happily sat on the upper deck. I realised a couple of minutes later that we were the only ones left in the locked bus! I had to bang on the window to catch one of the staff's attention to release us from the bus haha :P We were released just in time to hop onto the next bus just before it left for the loop. Phew. 
It started raining 30 minutes after we left Central Pier. We remained seated on the upper deck but we wore our ponchos. It was quite an exciting experience for us, sitting on the bus in the rain in winter and trying to shelter my camera from the rain haha. :D We initially wanted to drop off at Man Mo Temple and then walk around the area for Lower Lascar Row and PMQ etc but the rain forced us to drop off earlier at Mid-Levels Escalator where there is more shelter. The Mid-Levels escalator system is over 800 metres long and costed HK$245 million to build. 

Managed to catch this bus after being locked up in the first bus haha

Sitting in the upper deck in the rain. Fun experience :)

Getting ready to get off for our stop

St Honore Cake Shop near Mid Levels escalators, yum yum

About to ride the Mid Levels escalators :)

Street scene along the Mid Levels escalators

SoHo area

The various sections of the Mid Levels escalators

As the rain got heavier, we decided to make a pit-stop at Soho for lunch. :) It was rather relaxing watching people and the rain while having crepes, waffles and apple pie. Who said lunch must be savory?! :P

At Portobello cafe, drinking Zombie Sunset

Can you spot Juliane? Lol

Although it was still raining, we set off for PMQ (Police Married Quarters), a hub for design and creative industries. We walked up 7 levels so that I could get the murals done on the stairs and took the lift down to the ground floor again. On hindsight, I could have taken the lift to the top and then walked down! Haha :P There are lots of design shops and studios but I wasn't able to visit them. :( We were running behind our schedule because of the rain. Next visit. 

We went to Man Mo Temple next as it is nearby PMQ. It was tricky trying to read the Google map on Handy smartphone while navigating where we were in the heavy rain. By accident, I managed to bring us to Ladder Street and eventually to Man Mo Temple. :P

Ladder Street

Man Mo Temple

Us and Man Mo Temple in the background

Hollywood Road and its antique shops

Fringe Club on our way back to Central Pier

We finally arrived back at Central Pier close to 5pm. We had an hour before the Night Tour departs at 6:15pm.